Movie Roundup – July 06

About a Boy

A mildly amusing comedy with Hugh Grant, Rachel Weisz, and a few people I have never heard of. It was a lot better than I expected, Hugh Grant plays the same character he always plays and makes a fool of himself more than once. It had a few amusing bits, the best involving feeding the ducks (I didn't know it was that dangerous!).

A History of Violence

Violent? Yes. Glorified violence? Hell no. The film tells the story of a peaceful family man who becomes a small town hero when he saves the staff of his diner from a couple of criminals. Like most Cronenburg films the violence is brutal and shocking and is in no way done for the fun of it. Viggo Mortensen is wonderful showing a lot of emotion and aggression mixed up in a very complex story. I really liked this film, it was very different to the standard Hollywood movies and that's a good thing. A lot better than I expected - well recommended.

Firefly & Serenity

I'll talk about these in another post. Let's just say I am now a fan.

Munich

Based around the assasinations at the 1972 Olympics in Germany, Munich tells the story of the men who went after the 'gang' leaders who started the whole thing. Created by Spielberg to try an d provoke conversation about justice versus vengeance. The film starts (at least the film I saw started) with a small note from the director explaining that the film is mean to be his interpretation of the events in 1972 and is designed to get people to think about the things that are happening in the wars today.

Lord of War

I've got a new theory about films. If I fall asleep watching them they're not very good. I fell asleep!

Over the Hedge

Over the Hedge wasn't quite what I expected, but at the same time was everything I expected. Before the film started (I saw it at the cinema) there were trailers and all of them were for animated movies coming out this year. All of them look nice enough (lovely even) and have big name stars doing the voices but, apart from the Pixar movies, they just don't seem to have the heart that this sort of film needs (although there was a CG Aardman film trailered - maybe that will change things?). Unfortunately Over the Hedge falls into the same category. It was a good film, and technically wonderful, but it wasn't as good as Finding Nemo, or Toy Story.

Finding Neverland

An interesting story about the life of James Barrie, the author of Peter Pan. The story is based around the children (and family) he met who inspired the story of Peter Pan. Johnny Depp is great (as usual - and his English accent doesn't suck - unlike most Hollywood stars) and the film is surprisingly interesting although how much of it is grounded in reality I don't know.

The Break-Up

The trailer for this film made it all look like a light hearted romantic comedy. It wasn't. There were moments of humour but in general it was quite dark, and not very happy at all. The leads play things surprisingly straight for the most part, which makes a change since they are both known for their comedy roles. There are quite a few bits in the film that defy expectation and for that it's worth seeing, just don't expect to laugh too much.